It's just the beginning men, just the beginning.

The real shit hasn't hit the fan yet.

Look at Greece, that's where we're heading.

3rd world...hello!

What was alarming in the pics wer saw Down Under was them smashing the historic leadlights and Georgian buildings downtown. "Don't give no respect" as someone we all know said.

These riots reminded me of the poll tax revolts that brought down Thatcher.

They were saying that the pollies promised not to raise fees then did so bringing on the unrest.

I suspect the elements you see in these G20 riots may have insinuated themsleves into the situation.

I don't know. Britain has had a shocking Left wing Government for years due to this stupid 5 year Parliamentary election terms. We have 3 years and that is quite enough. We brought in 4 years in most states and that has been too long.

I just wonder if Britain's problems are so deep that they are moving to a proto-Revolutionary situation were the final gasps of Britsh civility disappear. Not unlike the football hooligan phenomenon.

There has been a gradual coarsening of British civil society over the last 20 years methinks...maybe they are moving to the Greek situation but that country has more serious problems.

The culture of entitlement started in Britain with the post War welfare state. With the collapse of the industries in the old Industrial Revolution towns and cities it became necessary to hand out welfare rather than create new jobs or reject the old unionist thinking that made the UK uncompetitive for job creation. The the North was tretaed by Labour as a vote haven by making sure the poor stayed in their place and voting cloth cap style for a Labour party that no longer cared about their real needs. That famous incident with Gordon Brown and the comment in the car with the mike still on epitomised how far Labour had come from being the worker's friend. I am not suggesting the Tories will be any better for these people but at least the cant and hypocrisy will be absent.

The cant and hypocrisy will be the familiar traditional English

Blighty doesn't appear to be the old lion anymore, the roar and fire is gone. We see a weak, poodle dog acquantince that is openly mocked in the embassy cables.  Meister is right, there has been gradual coarsening, dumming down and lack of refinement in British culture that is now all too apparent and ugly.

I see in my home town, a level of womanhood that appears and wants to be considered "hard" and associated with the fringes of violence.

The blame lies at many levels and it does include politicians, business practices that value short term profit over investment and R&D. Out of the Western world, UK based companies, consistently value a quick buck and quick fix, over long term strategies and operational excellence. Of course, restrictive practices by the unions in the '60's and '70's share in the blame, but so too the management who failed to engage or take them on.

There's no social contract in the UK, unlike as an example, that powerhouse of production activity and wealth, Germany. The average worker in Germany has a significantly better lifestyle and opportunities than the equivalent in the UK. So too here in Holland.

The Britain which could produce a comedy of good manners and stoicism, such as Dad's Army is gone.  What we have now is the dirty, filthy grotty reality of crony capitalism, that has done us in.

You can stay and fight as Tony suggests, but you can only be defiant for so long, what is required in the UK is the complete realignment of strategic planning in favour of high technology and production.  Also the purging of the political class.  Plebians like ourselves cannot even put a dint in the armour of the establishment of rank mediocrity.  Suffice to say, there's not the intelligensia in positions of power to fight a real war.

Not to mention the hidden costs associated with using third rate components imported back into the first world. a few years ago(despite the fact that its still highly illegal here) the contractors jumped like wild at the chance to use chinese valves, fittings, etc. when they became available via canada. they still havent grasped that the joke is on them, paying 130 dollars an hour to fiddle, coax, and jerry rig shit that is so badly engineered that it doesnt work at all. i'm told the same problem is exponentially worse in the electronics/high technology industries (whats left of them).